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Wow! At least two stories in seven days where homosexuality is the core content.

That’s what I’ve seen in Stars and Stripes’ coverage of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal, as well as its true colors — and I don’t mean the red, white and blue.

The extent of your articles under the umbrella of the DADT repeal is off the chain and it reveals you’re just another media outlet leaning to the left and shoving the liberal agenda in your readers’ faces. For those who disagree, tell me how many stories have been done to discuss the pros and cons/ups and downs of people in heterosexual marriages?

DADT has been repealed. OK. I suppose I will have to reluctantly tolerate homosexuality in our military society, but I will also say I’m still part of the majority who neither agree with it nor condone it in either the military or the civilian populace. That being said, I find Stars and Stripes’ “in your face” reporting of the gay lifestyle offensive, even when you portray it in the same light as other acceptable social practices/policies, and to the extent you make it front-page news with a third-page photo (“Recognition & relief: ‘Don’t ask’ repeal also lifts burden for same-sex partners of servicemembers,” article, Sept. 28). (After all, a picture’s worth a thousand words. Your version of “shock and awe”?)

This is what so many people have feared — that gays and the liberal media will not rest until they’ve saturated every inch of American fabric (as well as the rest of the world) to the point where history will look at us and wonder how homosexuality could ever have been thought of as perverse. This sounds like the propaganda technique “the big lie” where, essentially, if a lie is repeated enough, eventually it becomes the truth.

Just like your other article about the actress kissing a girl on a Southwest Airlines flight (“Actress kisses girl, gets escorted off plane,” Faces brief, Sept. 28), in which the actress used the word “discrimination” in an effort to give a perception of legal protectionism to her actions, thereby gaining social sympathy. However, neither sexual orientation nor public display of affection is protected under the U.S. Constitution.

I guess one gets what one pays for, considering Stars and Stripes is a free publication [for those forward deployed in war zones].

Jeffrey Matthews

Contingency Operating Base Speicher, Iraq

Privacy is what’s most at risk

The Sept. 27 article “The digital defense: Pentagon extends pilot program to protect cyber networks” informs the reader that laws are needed to protect companies from certain privacy laws in order to share information with the government. This proposed law would be a obvious breach of the Fourth Amendment. While the “right to privacy” is an implied right and not an actual right granted in the Fourth Amendment, the courts have ruled that we have a “reasonable expectation of privacy.”

This proposed legislation would provide the government a way to pry into the lives of ordinary citizens without the benefit of a search warrant. Your online purchases could be tracked, your broadband phone call listened in on, bank transactions scrutinized, etc. — all in an attempt to make government-secured networks safer from cyberattack.

The demonstrated greatest risk to government-secured networks is their very own users. While cyberattacks do happen, it is the user who knowingly or unknowingly loads data into the system, which make secured networks vulnerable.

We are not in need of legislation that erodes the constitutional rights of all Americans by allowing the government to spy on them. What is needed are clear-cut penalties for those who make our secure networks vulnerable to attack.

Petty Officer 1st Class Christopher Roberts

USS George H.W. Bush

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